https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/donald-trump-mike-flynn-unmasking
The “unmasking” controversy is in a sense the
official kickoff of the Trump campaign, a sequel to “Obama was born in
Kenya” and Hillary’s emails. It was unveiled when Richard Grenell,
the acting director of national intelligence who’s long been a highly
politicized Trump loyalist, declassified a list of Obama administration
officials who requested to “unmask” an American citizen anonymously
identified in intelligence reports, who turned out to be Michael Flynn.
Against the backdrop of Flynn’s changing legal fortunes, Trumpworld has
latched onto the document to rewrite the Russia saga and seemingly
absolve the former national security adviser of wrongdoing, which he
pleaded guilty to, propping him up as a martyr, targeted in a witch hunt
by Trump’s political enemies. It’s a made-for-media story that former
national security officials say, is essentially a fiction. “I think it
is a desperate and manipulative attempt to turn into a scandal what was
appropriate action taken by senior officials,” a former national
security official told me.
The declassified list, which Republican senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley released earlier this week, reads as a who’s who of the Obama administration, featuring James Clapper, James Comey, Samantha Power, and even former vice president and Trump’s presumptive challenger in the 2020 election, Joe Biden.
But despite the seemingly nefarious undertone of the process known
within the intelligence community as “unmasking,” former officials
familiar vehemently assert that it is commonplace. “You can’t do your
job without it,” Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA during the Obama administration and host of the Intelligence Matters
podcast, said, noting that he made such requests to the National
Security Agency several times a month during his tenure to better
understand the underlying intelligence in reports.
No it's not bad for General Flynn.
ReplyDeleteIt's bad for the unmaskers.
At the time General Flynn was being unmasked no one was alleging he did ANYTHING wrong. Zilch. Zippo. So the unmaskers have to explain why they were so worked up over legal conversations.
An administration that is leaving office in a few weeks. They have nothing better to do with themselves?